The Dragons' Children
by drakeara
Summary: Zutara as you not seen it as of yet!Set in a world of dragons and slayers and without the infamous war,Katara was raised by a Frost Dragon,but when she stumbles upon a nabouring dragons terrirory,her whole world get turned upsidedown.OMG,actually updated
1. Prologue

Prologue

The legendary tale of the Fire God and his bride is a tale told in many different ways. Some say that he was the son of the Sun and she of the moon and the sea. Others say that a grate monster gave them legendary powers and bound their souls together as a price. But none know the story as I do. For, even though it was a long time ago, I was very much involved.

The blood of Water and the blood of Fire were destined to mix, and a new race was to be born.

A long time ago, when the world was still young and only half explored, a husband paced outside of the maternity tent in the south pole. It was mid-winter and Tui was full in the sky. Inside another tent, not too far away, his first born sits patiently for the sister that he was never to see for a long time. His name was Sokka, later to become Sokka the Monster Hunter, and he was only a year and a bit old at that time. The youngster had been perching on that stool for a few hours by then, and was growing weary. Before he realised it, he had slumped into a deep sleep.

Tragedy struck. A fleet of Flame Monsters landed on the cold ice and attacked the small village. One of them hit the husband with its flaming tail, slamming him into the hut where his son slept. The man wished to scream when he saw that beast crawl into the Maternity tent, but decided to save his son in place. He grabbed the small boy and ran from the village to his fishing boats. Behind him, he heard the death screams of his wife and the verousious snarles of them monsters. That was the last any human ever saw of that mother, and the marker in a life of hatred.

Beneath the tent, another beast of another species lay dormant, only awoken by the high heat of the Flame Beasts. She lifts her head in her icy cave and looks up with her Third eye. above her there is a lot of death and she does not like it. The Frost Dragon shifts her huge body in her nest and pushes her weight onto her powerful hind legs. With a leap, she morphs through the ice and bursts out next to the tent. She swipes it away with a flick of her claws an simply towers over the man-eating monsters. One close to a dying human cowers and the dragon shoots jets of freezing ice at him. He dies instantly. She than switches her attention to the human and looks into her pain filled blue eyes.

"No." Croaks the human, with an odd understanding in the dragons expression. "I won't survive, but please, take my baby. And this." She lifts up the tiny bundle to the dragons now startled face and pulled a chocker off of her neck "Please protect her" Were her last words before her wounds killed her. The dragon lifted the small human in her front claws and spoke to her.

"_We best take you to warm land, small one, if I have any chance of saving you._" Her voice was smooth and calming. She then took the human artefact from the deceased humans grasp and, using her sharp nose, tacked it into the folds of the babies wrappings. She then spread her white wings wide, and took off into the air.

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**A/N: Yeah, its a dragony one. Who likes dragons out there? Puts up her hand Yup, its AU too. Can remeber how I came up with this idea, but I like it. Its gonna get better. ****Promise. :)**


	2. Chapter 1

1

A smallish elephant rat scurries out of his underground den. He gingerly sniffed the air and scampered a little further out. A little way away, a pile of loose fruits lay seemingly abandoned. He was very hungry, and hadn't eaten anything good in days. Foolishly, he darts over to it with only that pikle on his simple mind. With a jump, he dives at his prize. The young elephant rat never got there though. Before he could touch it, a strong hand snatched him mid-pounce and snapped his head. The young water bender held her prey up by its tail and smirked victoriously. Temporarily, she dropped the elephant rat and scooped the fruits up in her arm and then flung her rat back on top. With a nod, she left the tiny grove and headed towards the nearby mountain.

On the southern side of the mountain was a cave. Not a huge cave, but if you didn't know where you were going you could get very lost very quickly. This had been the water benders cave for as long as her memory could stretch. The walls were of a light grey and painting she had done as a youngster dyed the walls. Years of collected treasures were clumped in scattered piles throughout the main area of the cave. The girl dropped her collection in a messy pile just inside of the cave and placed her hands on her hips.

"Aren't you going to get up today?" She asked a huge mound at the far end of the cave. It growled half-heartedly and moved to face her. Lightning blue eyes cut through the darkness and met with the sky-blue of the water benders. "Good. Do you want to see what I got or not?" The blue-eyed mound then rose up even taller in the cave. The magnificent creatures entire body was covered in a thick, snow white hide. It had hue wings at least twice its full length and a long, elegant neck. its head was long and narrow with long, narrow ears standing back loosely among its many ivory horns. A forked tongue every now and then darted out from between it razor sharp teeth and tasted the thick air. It nostrils were constantly wide and flaring. Its tail danced long behind it and ended in a sharp point. The creature wad short but strong legs that made its body barley brush the caves floor. It was a Frost Dragon, a female one at that.

"Ok, Katara, what did you get today?" She sounded bored and uninterested, but it was mainly because she hated being woken up. Katara pointed out the pile and grinned proudly.

"Found it just outside of the territory, got my self an elephant rat too." Was her simple explanation. The motherly dragon smiled in the way that dragons do and nuzzled her playfully in the stomach.

"Little scavenger." she chuckled playfully as she flicked her tail with a loud whipping sound. Foolishly, she never asked exactly where 'outside of the territory' Katara found it.

"WHERE IS MY OFFERING!?" Roared the huge western dragon, flinging her head high. Her thick hide was of a blood red colour and her eyes glistened like real gold. Before her, a small peasant knelt cowering at her claw.

"We are so sorry, Faia. We did set out you offering. The best fruit we have to offer." he whimpered pathetically.

"Grr, fine. You will get me new fruits, and vegetables and animals too this time. And if you do not, I shall take all of your sons and daughters from you!" the man yelped, and sprung to his feet. To reassure her threat, she shot a jet of fire after him. A tall cliff overlooked the village, and it was Faia who prevented rocks falling off of it and onto the pathetic place. She could go anywhere she wanted, but there was only one problem with that. Zuko. He was a young Fire Prince placed in her care by his uncle. She had to until 'It was time' or some prophical crap like that. Even though she was often bitter and sarcastic, Faia loved the fire bender like the son she never had. She landed in the mouth of the cave at the base of the cliff and slumped inside. "Foolish villagers. Can't even give us fruit without messing up." She growled, thumping her head down beside her front leg. By the smell of it, her cave was not long abandoned. Briefly, she pondered of the whereabouts of her human, and then pondered about why she had never bothered to dominate the entire forest. It was a huge woodland area, with a mountain range right in the middle the middle of it. A perfect place to raise dragons and humans alike. The problem was that a dragon lived there already. From the scent, she couldn't tell of its age or gender, but she knew that it would be too risky to simply attack it without a proper reason or plan. Besides, she had a village that fed her, giving her no need to have an oversized territory.

In the meantime, Zuko wondered to the Offering place in hiding. None of the peasants knew of his existence, and were not meant to know. When he arrived he saw the villages setting out a selection of foods and live animals. He was going to wait for a few moments to be sure that they weren't returning when a girl stepped out from the brambles in the other direction. Unlike him, she wore nothing but a chocker. A water tribe chocker. her hair was neatly braided to the base of her spine and had two loops that framed her face. She was quite an amazing sight to look at. Her blue eyes scanned the area and her full lips formed an elegant 'o'. To Zuko's surprise and annoyance. She leant down and picked up some of the food. With a growl, Zuko leapt out of the bush and glared at her.

"Hey!" He snared. The girl let out a startled squeak, and began to run with the food still in her hands. Zuko charged after her into the dense forest. Zuko wasn't fully sure where they were heading, but when he noticed that the mountain was begging to show, he slightly panicked and leaped at the girl. She cried out as he slammed her onto the hard ground. He rolled her quickly onto her back and straddled her hips, pinning her slender arms above her head. She squirmed her best she could, but it was no use. "So you are the one who stole our food." Zuko pointed out. The girl just squirmed again and snarled at him. He lowered his face so his lips were mere millimetres from hers. In a light whisper he asked. "Who are you?" Her azure eyes stayed locked in his amber ones.

"My name is Katara. Please get off." she told him in a mature and slightly shaky voice. He smirked with a light laugh, and kissed her gently.

"No, I'm think I'll stay like this" _Far better than mere food_. She looked startled at his kiss, but then regained her voice.

"But I'm not, and if you don't get off then I'll call Gelu." Her threat had little effect on Zuko. He merely smirked at Katara, and attempted to kiss her again, she moved her head so the kiss only landed on her chin. "GELU!" She called loudly into the air. A loud roar relied to it. "Gelu!" She cried in a happier voice. A snow-white dragon soared down from behind the mountain and landed just a little higher up from them. She lowered her head threatingly just in front of Zuko's face and snarled at him, scrunching her face up into a sinister scowl.

"Get. Off. Of. Her." She snarled slowly. When Zuko made no move, she shot a tall jet of icy fire into the air. In reply, Zuko shot his own flame into the sky as a signal to Faia.

As soon as Faia saw Zuko's flair she flew in its direction. She landed heavily, folding her huge wings against her sides. The two opposing dragons stood facing each other unmoving and quite. Western and Frost. So similar in form, but so different at the same time. Zuko and Katara looked at each dragon slowly and carefully, still in the same position that were before. Nether of them had seen two dragons together, and it partially frightened them. The creatures were huge and almost equal in size, age and power. Both seen to be sizing one another up, readying to see who would back up. Nether did. Nether even moved except to blink. All other animals seemed to know of the pending danger, and were quite as death. For a short while, the world was deprived of noise. Gelu was the first to speak.

"What are doing in territory, Western?" She said in the calmest voice she could muster.

"What are you doing with my human?"

"He attacked Katara."

"She stole our food!" Exclaimed Zuko, pointing a condemning finger at Katara.

"But there was lots of it! Besides, how was I meant to know that it was yours?" Katara cried out, sitting up slightly. Both dragons glared at them.

"Katara." Ordered Gelu "Take him back to the cave. We dragons shall deal with this as only dragons can." Katara looked up at her with fear in her blue eyes. Zuko crawled off of Katara and let her get to her feet. She then took his strong, pail hand in her darker one and scrabbled up the side of the mountain.

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**A/N: I made Faia look quite bad, didn't I.**

**Faia means fire and Gelu is latin for frost.**

**And Zuko kissed her pretty quick, didn't he? But it was kinda a playful kiss.**

**Oh, and in this both of them are 16 and the dragons are over 7k. Got it? Good.**

**And on the cold fire thingy, its actually boiling nitrogen. Sounds like it should be hot, but liquid nitrogen can harden something to below freezing in a blink of an eye. Liquid nirogen is fun XD.**


	3. Chapter 2

2

Inside of the cave, the two young benders sat on the cold floor opposite each other. Even though she was in her own environment, Katara was the more frightened of the two. She had never seen Gelu so angry. All was unnaturally quiet. The young woman could feel the fire benders eyes on her face, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of eye contact. She felt the cave's temperature increase slightly, and knew that he had use fire bending to heat up the air around him. She shot a glare at him.

"What?" He asked.

"I like it cold in here." She snapped in reply. When he did nothing about it, she pulled a long snake of snow from near the mountain top inside of the cave. He raised an eyebrow at her. "What?" She asked like him.

"You can bend? Water bend?" She cave him a careless shrug and hugged her knees to her chest. "What is a water bender doing in the middle of the Earth Kingdom?" She glared at him, and made no other reply. He then asked her a final question, looking at the chocker on her neck. "That's a water tribe engagement necklace. Was you suppose to get married to someone before you came to live with this Ice Dragon?"

"I have always lived with Gelu. Ever since I had just been born. She told me that this was my mothers last gift to me." Zuko said nothing as Katara continued. "Gelu said that my mother was a beautiful woman, but was killed by Flame Monsters, the dragons that give all dragons a bad name. She kills them at every chance she gets." Zuko then nodded in silent agreement. The fire dragon that served as his guardian believed the exact same thing. "She raised me, so how was I suppose to ever expect to 'marry'; dragons don't marry, now do they?" Her last question was rhetorical. Neither of them noticed ether the sounds of a dragon fight beginning, or of being cut untimely short.

Faia suddenly appeared in the cave mouth, looking shaken and surprised.

"Zuko. On my back. Now." She ordered. "A hunter has attacked the ice dragon. She's holding them off so we can get out of here." Before Faia could finish her sentence, Katara was past the dragon and charging down the mountain side to find her surrogate mother. The fire prince tried to stop her, but proved unsuccessful as Faia had forced him onto her back. "I'm sorry Zuko, but we cannot stop her. We have to get to safety and its her choice if she wishes to die with than damned ice prat." She then leapt into the air and took off at instant full speed. They had to get to the hidden cave by the Fire Lord's castle.

Meanwhile, Gelu circled around with the hunter in a huge clearing. Her giant wings were trapped with nets nailed to her sides. A trickle of blood ran from each wound. She roared and snapped at the human, but he deflected her with his shield, cracking her head around the side of her face. It made a sickening crunch. The dragon let out a painful roar and bent her neck so her head was held by her side. She then turned her face to glare at him again. Her cold fire was useless against his shield and dragon-proof armour. Making a quick decision, she reared up onto her short hind legs and slammed down at him. He jumped to her left, his blue cape narrowly avoiding her sharp grasp and aimed a kick at her shoulder. This succeeded in throwing her off balance. The added weight of the water-orb decorated net, she tumbled to her side. He then jumped up onto her soft stomach and pulled out his loyal, water tribe machete and wielded it above his head. He let out a proud battle cry, and was about to swing it into her chest when a long cry stopped him.

"Nooooooooooooooooo!" A feminine voice cried from behind him. He started to turn when a tan-brown blur shoved him violently from the dragons torso and darted to the side of the dragons head. It was a young woman, who appeared a year younger than him. She wrapped her long, thin arms around the dragons muzzle and looked at him with pleading eyes. "Don't kill her. Please Don't kill her, sir. She's all I have." Her sad blue eyes looked into his identically blue ones desperately. The more the great Sokka the Monster Hunter looked at her, the more she made him think of his dead mother. His expression softened.

"Fine. I shall let her live. Both of you, come with me." He then picked up his sword and slipped it back it the holder on the opposite hip to where he now held is machete. Katara assisted her dragon to its feet and followed obediently where the 18 year old led them. The boy suddenly stopped in realisation and looked at Katara with a cringe. He pulled his cape off and handed it to her. "Uh, wrap this around yourself. Can't have you walking into camp naked." She did so, with Gelu instructing her to wrap it around her bust in place of over her shoulders. When the cape was snug, secure and hiding the ladies intimates properly, they continued. Sokka walked boldly a few paces ahead of the other two. "What is you name, miss?" He asked suddenly without looking back. Katara introduced herself and her dragon with a pointless smile. "My name is Sokka. Sir. Sokka. Got that?" His own introduction was blunt and formal. Katara nodded and smiled again.

The three suddenly find the trees thinning and they arrived in the far edge of the woods. This was where the human camp was. It was quite a big camp. There must have been between 150-200 men and women there. All of the tents were made of a faded, brown fabric and most stood over two meters tall. A man with messy and longish hair suddenly hopped down from a tree. He had slightly tanned skin, chocolate brown eyes and a bit of straw hanging from his mouth. He gave Sir. Sokka a quick bow of his brown-haired head.

"Sir. Sokka, you chose to bring the dragon back?"

"This girl incited I let her live." Sokka explained bluntly.

"And who, may I ask, is this beautiful creature?" He asked, side stepping around the Monster Slayer to take Katara's hand and kiss it formally. Katara blushed innocently, making him smirk proudly. She introduced herself again shyly." A pleasure to meet you, Katara, my name is Jet, leader of the Freedom Fighters; the best army there is." His pride was even smellable by the less enhanced human, Katara as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

"Have some self restraint, Jet." Sokka ordered defencelessly. He just felt that he needed to defend this girl he too had only just met. "Be of some use and go find Suki. Tell her I need her to help care for the dragon-" He began, only to be interrupted by Katara.

"Gelu. Her name is Gelu." Sokka rolled his eyes.

"That I need help with _Gelu._ And go and find Meng too. Tell her to leave Aang alone for five damned minutes and help her." He the jerked his thumb at Katara, who only glared at him again. Jet then took his arm off of Katara and reluctantly went to find said women. Soon after a woman in a magnificent armour and beautiful war paint appeared. A younger woman following her. Sokka and Suki, the warrioress, then led Gelu away from Katara. The other girl, Meng, stayed with Katara. She looked her slowly up and down and dragged her off in another direction. Katara followed behind the girl, taking in details about her. Her had mid-brown hair, styled into some kind of style that looked like comical dragon horns or rabbiroo ears. Her skin was fair and her two front teeth had a gap between then width of a gold coin. Freckles covered the girls cheeks, making her look younger and innocent. By her physical form, the dragon-raised girl assumed that the girl was about fifteen. She wore a pink robe with purple cuffs that fanned out a little as she walked. Her nose was a little wide and turned up at the end.

Before Katara realised it, she was sitting on a wooden stool inside one of the lager tents. Women of different ages and appearances measured her and held strips of different coloured fabric to her skin. To her, it was all going very quickly. Another lady suddenly pulled Katara's head back and poured warm water through her hair. This made Katara jump with a minuscule squeal. The lady tutted and began to scrub some kind of sweet smelling oil into her head. She then washed it out again and gave it a quick rub dry. A comb was run through her hair and the dressing lady began to plat it. She left two treads either side of her face and clipped two blue beads in them. The two strands were then clipped into a small bun just above the braid. When her hair was done with, Katara was tugged to her feet. Longs strip of white was wrapped around her bust and another around her feminine area. She was sat back down momentarily so that someone could stuff her legs into a pair of dark grey leggings that belled out loosely to her mid-shins. She was stood up again so they could tighten it to her hips. Some kind of short-sleeved robe in a light blue with white lining was practically thrown on to her. It was very flattering to both her physique and skin. After being sat down a final time a pair of black pumps were slipped onto her feet. Katara, however, had no idea as of what any of this was.

Hours later, the man named Sokka returned. He carried a sack of gold on his shoulder as he walked proudly into the canteen tent. On a silken mat next to his lover, Suki and second in command, Toph, he sat looking serious and blank. A bowl of broth was served to him and he began to eat with everyone else. Katara, who sat on the opposite side of table to him and next to Jet, watched him come in silently. She wondered where he had been and what was in the cloth bag. She also wondered how Gelu was coping, being that she hadn't seen her since Sokka and Suki had led her off. A young man suddenly burst through the flaps of the tent. He wore slightly loose clothes in yellows, oranges and browns. Blue arrow tattoos stretched down his arms and looped over his bald head, pointing at the point between his brown eyebrows. His big twinkling grey eyes were full of life and mischief. By his physical form, Katara could only guess that he was around 15 years old. He walked happily up to where Katara sat and flumped down on the spare seat beside her. He smiled at Sokka and told him:

"The dragon you told me to take care of is coping fine. She's all cleaned up and on the mend. But I think she still needs to stay with us for a while longer." Sokka nodded plainly at him as he drunk down his meaty soup. A plate of various vegetables were passed to the person in yellow. He suddenly turned to Katara and smiled brightly.

"Hi, I'm Aang. You must be Katara." Katara looked a little confused.

"You know my name?"

"Yeah. You're all Gelu kept on talking about. She really loves you." Katara gave him a sweet smile. "Hm, you look cute when you smile like that." Aang commented with a light chuckle. A blush spread over her cheeks as she reverted her attention to her food. "Hey, do you wanna know something else? You look just like Sokka and Hakoda. You could be a long lost sister or something!" The moment he mentioned 'sister' Sokka flinched, causing his spoon to scrape violently against the bottom of his bowl.

"Shit..." He muttered under his breath. Ever since he too had lost him mother and sister, Sokka had reacted in similar ways every time someone mentioned sisters of mothers. Hakoda too reacted in a similar fashion whenever his wife or lost child where mentioned.

It was late at night when Katara finally managed to escape the annoying maids who had taken to watching over her. Being with merely one person for more than ten minutes was long enough for her, but with a whole room of the push, controlling _things_ would be enough to drive any hermit-like person to the brink of madness after hours of it endlessly. Forever getting her to try this on or hold that up: She hardly knew what the 'This and That' she was holding up was most of the time! The girl took the first moment she could to escape to do so, immediately seeking out the place where her dragon was taken.

-Zuko-

Zuko and Faia arrived late at night. The wind held a slight bitter cold that was unusual for the warm, Fire Nation islands. A large cave jutted out of the 'Dark' side of the volcano that was the heart of the imperial city. Whist Zuko began to explore, the large, now completely drained, fire dragon settled down to rest on the warmish ground. Though the volcano was not active, it still emitted heat throughout itself. The young prince walked calmly deeper into the cave, dragging his arm lamely along its stone wall. His mind wondered back to the nude lady with the Ice dragon back in the Earth kingdom. Is she even still alive? He thought. What if she had run down to her dragon? That hunter could have killed her, or she could have got herself captured. Guilt run over Zuko's heart. I could have made her come with us. I'm sure Faia wouldn't have minded having another human in her care. Her placed one hand on his forehead, and pushed his hair back. And what of the other dragon? No one deserves to be slain. But what if they had mistaken her for Faia? That wouldn't be fair justice at all!

"Zuko, don't wonder too far back. I don't know how much of a maze this cave is!" The Fire dragon's voice crashed through his thoughts. He looked over his shoulders to see the blacked out form his guardian towering up to fill nearly the whole mouth of the cave. Her flame coloured eyes shone out at him. He then nodded, and turned back.

The next morning, a slightly aged, large man appeared at the mouth of the cave. His hands were folded inside of the opposite arms sleeve and his warm gold eye twinkled in a friendly way.

"I had heard that a dragon was seen flying over; I thought it would be you." He told them in a calm, friendly way. Faia craked her eyes open, without lifting her head from her leg. As he blurred into focus, she rose the scaily equivilant of an eyebrow.

"Iroh?" she called unsurly. It was then that Zuko recognised him, being that it had been a long time since they had last seen one another.

"Uncle?" He called in the same tone of voice. The old man gave his signature smile. He pulled his arms from his loose sleeves and held them open in a friendly gesture. Zuko, being too mature for hugs from his uncle, refused the hug, so Faia took it in his place, gently pushing her large, sharp head into his stomach.

"It's great to see you again Iroh; it has been too long. How have you been? How's the family?" Though Iroh told her of how life has been in the Fire Nation, he didn't dare tell he of the loss of his son and the disappearance of his sister-in-law. The two's chattering eventually bored Zuko. He walked past the two to the mouth of the cave and looked out at the sky and horizon as it vanished reached out for what seemed like eternity. The sky was bright and beautiful, and the sun that was mostly behind them cast a long shadow of the mountain across the deep blue water. Looking at all of that water reminded him of that girl, Katara. The young man was so caught up in thought that he failed to notice Iroh sneak up beside him.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" He commented simply. Zuko nodded in reply, quickly, attempting to hide his surprise. "Come, lets go back up to the palace. It's about time you took back up your rightful place."

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Drakeara: OMG, I actually wrote it...And its pants. Go on, be honest. It is rubbish Is in a state of spoilerfied zutara depression.


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